Winter Update

Well today we had the first sighting of snow here in Seoul, and man was it nice. I stepped outside this morning feeling rather tired and groggy. But not 2 seconds into my walk I realized all the snow coming down around me. I instantly smiled. Big fat white flakes falling on the streets, on my face and all over the city. I was instantly reminded of being home, and waking up to some fresh flakes or maybe a nice dusting of snow. There was no dusting this morning but the the snow continued to fall. Throughout the day the flakes fell, sometimes slow, sometimes almost like a blizzard. On Wednesdays I have an hour and a half break at 2:oo so I was walking home and man was it coming down. Just outside work Terry, an employee at Wonderland who handles everything from our apartments to fixing the copier, to delivering the mail. And today he was my good friend for he had a nice package for me. I received a package from my Uncle Jim and my grandma Hill. (thanks a lot, it was a good one). I rushed home to open it and inside there was some unexpected Christmas decorations along with some of those edible goodies. First snow fall and x-mas decorations totally made my day and made me feel a little closer to home. I now have some decorations in my place and even a little decorated Christmas tree. Always a good touch for the holidays, especially when away from home.
I finally have some confirmed plans for Christmas time. Several of the guys I work with will be around so we are planning on having a similar dinner to our Thanksgiving one. On the 27th we have booked a room in the countryside to get out of the city for a couple of days. It will be nice to get out and see some of the country, and also nice to just not be working. December is a very busy month at work. Every month the children have a speech contest, so they have to memorize a book and recite. This is usually no problem and some kids do a great job. However in December we are adding to their list of requirements. Now our classes have to learn and memorize a Christmas Carol. My classes have "Deck the Halls" and "Christmas is Coming". Not too bad, but just one more thing for them. We are also writing scripts for graduation in February. All the students will be performing a play of some kind in front of the whole school and all the mothers. So we are busily writing these scripts, making sure every students has the same number of lines because the moms are extremely...uuhhh...picky ya that's it picky. So a busy month oh, and this month, on the 16th and 17th we have open classes. They are when the moms come into the class and observe their sons and daughters and make sure our teaching skills are up to par. So we will be practicing these classes several times before they actually happen. Gotta please the moms, they can be "picky".
So a busy but exciting month at the moment. Everything here is great and it is hard to believe it has already been 4months I am here in this city. Hope all is well on the home front and all is well for my friends across the world.